Friday, September 28, 2007

Round-a-view with destiny

Slate's Fred Kaplan uses a recently released transcript of a pre-Iraq invasion conversation between President Bush and Spain's then-Prime Minister José María Aznar to give advise on picking the next president. The critical exchange is:

AZNAR: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.

BUSH: I'm an optimist because I believe that I'm right. I'm a person at peace with myself. It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.

Here, in three sentences, is the first lesson on how to assess the current crop of presidential candidates: Don't pick anyone who utters, or seems capable of believing, those three sentences.

"Beware the politician who sees his life as an appointment with destiny," Kaplan writes. "Ditto a president who thinks it's his 'turn' to do anything, much less to go to war and save civilization."

Amen to that.

2 comments:

  1. Wondered about the translation myself. What's quoted above, however, was more interesting and seemed in character with many other Bush statements before and after his inauguration. Kaplan's admonitions seemed perspicacious.

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